


Purgatory

by Praetyger



Series: The Emanation Chronicles [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22883644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Praetyger/pseuds/Praetyger
Summary: Takes place post Last Christmas.(Oh Doctor, To save her soul? Who my dear will save yours?)His face was white with effort. She could see in his eyes that he knew it was hopeless.“Clara, that down there is a realm that exists beyond cause and effect. Beyond time. Beyond comprehension. Beyond reality. To time lords, that there is the Underworld. Damnation. The realm of nightmares.Hell itself!"“Doctor, please. Let me go.” she sobbed.“Never,” he said as he locked eyes with her.“You’re not getting away from me. Not again. Never again. Not if I can help it.”“What are you going to do?” she asked despite herself. He smiled then.“The only thing I can do. Faced with certain death. No way out.Die faster.”Clara looked into his eyes in the gloom. She saw the alien, purple sunlight far, far above – maybe the last sunlight she would ever see. An alien world.The Doctor let go of the ledge, and together, holding hands, he and Clara fell into the endless darkness.
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Series: The Emanation Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876696
Comments: 49
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

The roof of the cavern collapsed with an almighty crash and Clara was blinded by purplish sunlight. She got the briefest glimpse of the TARDIS hovering above, rotating on its axis before she ducked for cover. _It must have blasted straight through the ground into the cavern_. Chunks of asphalt as big as garage doors tumbled down straight towards Clara. She jumped to one side narrowly avoiding falling into the chasm below, roiling and twisting with a paradoxical illuminating darkness— _The Schism_.

Clara was covered in dust, the leather strap of the vortex manipulator chafed against her wrist as she coughed and rose. Amazingly, none of the debris had hit her. She suspected that the TARDIS had projected a forcefield of some sort and protected her, she also suspected that it might’ve been nothing but luck. The TARDIS cloister bells echoed throughout the chamber as Clara winced from her various aches and bruises- nearly beginning to choke from the clouds of dust that had filled the chamber.

But none of that mattered when she heard the Doctor’s voice from above: “Clara!”

“Here!” she sobbed.

All the terror seemed to leave her in one massive yelp. As the TARDIS descended, she saw the Doctor leaning out the doorway. His scowling face was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

The room kept shaking, but Clara managed to stand. The floor at her feet seemed stable for the moment. She edged closer to the gaping hole where a large car-sized chunk of concrete had punched a hole straight through the cavern floor and into the chasm below.

Clara was dimly aware of the TARDIS hovering to a stop and the Doctor yelling her name, but she stood in a daze staring into the darkness below. Her thoughts in a haze from the day’s ordeals. Then suddenly the Doctor was next to her, taking her face in his hands. He turned her gently away from the pit and peered at her face. She buried her face in his chest, gasping in relief.

“You’re okay” he said. “Clara. My impossible girl. You made it”

Suddenly, the pit behind them exhaled a cold blast of air as the TARDIS cloister bells began to ring, deafeningly loud in the confines of the chamber. The Doctor jumped in alarm and guided her away from the edge with urgency. The chamber groaned and the TARDIS tilted to one side. The blue box then started a different noise- a clanging echo. She looked at the Doctor and saw from the fear etched into his face that he knew what that meant.

“NO! The engines are phasing, we have to get to the TARDIS NOW!”

The floor began to crumble, falling away in chunks as she felt the air being sucked out from her surroundings. Sucked into the void below.

“It’s the Schism! It’s reacting to the artron energy from the TARDIS!”

“The floor won’t last!” she managed to roar back, finding her voice at last. Plumes of dust and smoke blasted from holes in the floor. The chasm below seemed to be exhaling.

Clara heard the distinct sound of a dematerializing TARDIS and looked up to see it beginning to fade from reality.

“The Hostile Action Defense System.” He roared, bounding forward and pointing the sonic at the TARDIS which seemed to stabilize momentarily, still on its side. “The Schism is devoid of causality. Down there, the time vortex does not _exist._ It’s tentative here at best.” The cloister bells began to ring again, more urgent now.

“Clara, get to the TARDIS. I’ll hold off the dematerialization. Put the handbrake down and engage Emergency protocol 51. Quickly. Old girl might decide to go into siege mode if I hold it for too long.” The cloister bells clanged louder as the air suddenly stilled.

Clara started to stagger towards the TARDIS, when she felt the hair in the back of her neck rise as the chasm below groaned and all the air from her surroundings was sucked in. The floor falling away rapidly now, all at once. She tried to reach the Doctor’s side but found herself moving backwards instead. Her legs swept out from under her and she fell on her face. Clara’s mind was woolly from the pain. She felt the distinct sensation of being yanked downwards, dragging her towards the pit.

“Clara!” The Doctor lunged. He grabbed her arm but the momentum carried him along as well.

Clara sobbed as she hit the edge of the pit. Her legs went over the side. Too late, she realized what was happening: The floor behind her had disappeared into the abyss and the patch of concrete she stood on had begun to give and tilted downwards at a steep angle. It wouldn’t last. The void below was dragging her and everything else down. It was pulling her in. The cloister bells continued to ring.

“No,” the Doctor muttered. One hand grasped firmly around Clara’s wrist while the other pointed the sonic at the TARDIS, holding the dematerialization at bay. She looked at the leather strap around her wrist. A half-idea forming in her head.

“Doctor, the vortex manipulator –”. He shook his head.

“It won’t work here, not this close to the Schism. I’m not even sure I can get the TARDIS out of here through the Vortex.”

The Schism inhaled again, stronger now and yanked her further. The Doctor’s eyes widened as he pocketed the sonic. Clara slipped over the edge; the Doctor fell with her.

Her body slammed into something. She must have blacked out briefly from the pain. When she could see again, she realized that she’d fallen partway into the pit and was dangling over the void. The Doctor had managed to grab a ledge about fifteen feet below the top of the chasm. He was holding on with one hand, gripping Clara’s with the other, put the pull on her was much too strong.

The pit shook. The Doctor was the only thing keeping from falling. He was barely holding on to a ledge the size of a bookshelf. He had ceased anchoring the TARDIS to their location. _It’s going to dematerialize any second._

Clara’s leg felt like it was pulling free of her body. Pain washed everything in red. The force of the Schism tugged at her like dark gravity. She didn’t have the strength to fight. She knew she was too far down to be saved.

“Doctor, you have to let me go, “she croaked. “You can’t pull me up. You need to get to the TARDIS .”

His face was white with effort. She could see in his eyes that he knew it was hopeless.

“Clara, that down there is a realm that exists beyond cause and effect. Beyond time. Beyond comprehension. Beyond reality. To time lords, that there is the Underworld. Damnation. The realm of nightmares. Hell itself!"

The cloister bells had stopped ringing. “Your vortex manipulator won’t save you there. Won’t even work _here_. If the TARDIS were to fall in …” he looked above him. Her stomach dropped as she heard the TARDIS start to dematerialize.” If the TARDIS were to fall in there, there would be no way back. Entropy would drain her power sources. She'd trapped until the universe was reduced to non-existence. ”

“Doctor, please. Let me go.” she sobbed.

“Never,” he said as he locked eyes with her. Something in his face shifted then, his eyebrows relaxed and his eyes became tender in that way only she had become privy to. She thought he had never looked more handsome.

“You’re not getting away from me. Not again. Never again. Not if I can help it.”

She then understood what would happen.

“What are you going to do?” she asked despite herself. He smiled then.

“The only thing I can do. Faced with certain death. No way out. _Die faster_.”

Clara looked into his eyes in the gloom. She saw the alien, purple sunlight far, far above – maybe the last sunlight she would ever see. An alien world.

The Doctor let go of the ledge, and together, holding hands, he and Clara fell into the endless darkness. 

* * *

She’d lost track of how long they’d been falling. It felt like an eternity. They’d been holding hands ever since they dropped into the chasm. Now the Doctor pulled her close, hugging her tight and taking a deep breath as they tumbled through absolute darkness.

Wind whistled in Clara’s ears as the air grew hotter and damper, as if they were plummeting into the throat of a massive dragon. She wrapped her arms around the Doctor and tried not to sob.

This wasn’t _fair_. She’d gone through so much the past day. The past year. Her heart being broken over and over. Losing the Bow-tie Doctor to regeneration. Finding him again. Losing Danny. Three times over. And giving up the Doctor in the aftermath, for what she had thought was own good. When he had needed her the most. When she had need _him_ the most. Then miraculously, the Doctor had dropped into her life once again and they had eloped in the dead of night and _just_ when everything had felt _so right,_ they had plunged to their deaths.

Clara checked her vortex manipulator in vain hope. The space-time coordinates were on the fritz, constantly changing. It couldn’t get a lock on their current coordinates. Even if it could, she didn’t know what destination coordinates to set it for. She supposed that the Doctor would know, the fact that he hadn’t tried spoke to its inefficacy. This place existed beyond the time vortex; he had said. There was nothing for the vortex manipulator to manipulate.

Her panic had just reached it’s peak when something about their surroundings changed. The darkness took on a grey-red tinge. She realized she could see the Doctor’s hair as she hugged him. The whistling in her ears turned into more of a roar. The air became intolerably hot, permeated with a smell like rotten eggs. Suddenly, the chute they’d been falling through opened into a vast landscape. Miles below them, Clara could make out the bottom. For a moment she was too stunned to think properly. The entirety of London could have fit here five times over—and she couldn’t even see its full extent. Red clouds hung in the air like vaporized blood. The landscape—at least what she could see of it—was rocky black plains, punctuated by jagged mountains and fiery chasms, leading deeper into the abyss.

She tried desperately to think of a way out, a plan. That’s what they _did._ Her and the Doctor. Face insurmountable odds and beat any challenge that may present itself with only their wits. She’d proven herself multiple times since she had started knocking about with the Doctor. But she couldn’t think of any way to reverse or even slow their fall. She looked to the Doctor. His eyes were closed, and his brow furrowed as if in thought.

Clara pressed her lips to the Doctor’s ear. “I love you”.

She wasn’t sure he heard her- but if they were going to die, she wanted those to be her last words.

Suddenly, the Doctor’s eyes snapped open and she wondered what his response might be, wondered if he would admit to his feelings in these final moments. She searched his eyes and saw instead something that made her heart soar far more than if he had. That familiar glint in his eye. _He had a plan._

“Well now, don’t you look cheerful” said the Doctor with a smirk. _He was smirking. We’re falling to our deaths and he’s smirking._ She risked a glance downwards. They were still a long way up, descending rapidly.

“Quite the pickle we’ve found ourselves in. We’re about to reach terminal velocity.”

“Yes! _Terminal._ We’re going to splatter on impact!”

“Don’t be so pessimistic, Clara. This isn’t my first rodeo. I died in my first rodeo.This isn’t that.”

“Doctor!” The ground was coming up fast. Clara’s heart pounded. Seconds ago, she had resigned herself to the inevitable. Now, the adrenaline was back. She was in crisis mode.

“Doctor! Plan. Now!” she commanded. “Do I need to pull a cord or something?”

“A what?”

“A cord! Like a parachute?”

He twisted his neck at an odd angle to look at her as if she had lost her mind. “Did you _see_ a parachute on me? Really, Clara. Should I be offended you weren’t paying attention?”

She relaxed her grip a little since he didn’t seem unduly worried about their imminent appointment with gravity. _He had a plan. They were going to get out of this, despite what it seemed. Same old, same old._

“Shut up” she said, her face inquisitive. _But how?_

“Take my hand” he said, his tone now low and deadly serious. He disentangled their legs and shuffled away from her. He grabbed hold of her hand and helped her turn, so they were now plummeting to their death side by side. _Always wanted to try skydiving._ They were more than halfway down now. Whatever he was planning on doing, they were running out of time _._ She tried to figure out what the Doctor was thinking. It’s an exercise she found herself partaking in with increasing frequency as of late. There clearly was a way out of this situation, she just couldn’t see it yet.

The Doctor turned to her. “Clara, whatever happens now, I’ve got you. Trust me.” he said simply, the intensity in his gaze scorching. She nodded and returned a genuine smile, heart filling with hope. _Conviction. Faith._

With one hand, the Doctor extracted the sonic screwdriver from his jacket lining and extended it outwards, his coat billowing behind him, flashing reds as they fell. The sight sent a thrill down her spine. _Oh, yes._

They hurtled towards the ground at terminal velocity, the wind a roar in their ears now. The Doctor suddenly pulled Clara to him once again, twisting so that their positions were now reversed with him, facing upward. She felt him run his hand up her arm as he grabbed her wrist with the vortex manipulator and pointed the sonic at it. They continued to plummet, clinging to each other for dear life. _Not a hugging person,_ she thought. Unbelievably, he then proceeded to hurl the sonic screwdriver above her head, into the unknown.

“Geronimo” he grumbled lowly into her ear, pressed a button on her wrist.

She felt a buzzing sensation throughout her body and heard a noise somewhere between static and a sonic boom. Suddenly, the world warped around her, her lungs emptied of air and her ears popped as everything turned black before coming into focus again. They were still falling.

“What just happened?!” she gasped trying to catch her breath.

“Short-range teleport” explained the Doctor. “Hold your breath this time onwards”. _Onwards?_ She heard the sonic whir and her stomach twisted once again, the world with it.

“It’s not working!” she yelled despairingly and peeked over his shoulder, they didn’t seem any closer to the ground than they had been, however. “Oh, quite the contrary Clara. We’ve teleported. Vortex manipulators, cheap and nasty time travel. Horribly addictive and useless to us here. Performance issues.” She twisted a little and watched the doctor snatch the sonic out of the air, despite having thrown it before. He flung it upward once again with a grunt before teleporting them again.

“But it can still manipulate space, so long as said space is _here_. I have it locked to the screwdriver. This many successive teleportations in space-time would have ordinarily scattered you across the cosmos. For time lords, well it’s simply a very bad habit. I used to be 40-a-day guy in my youth.”

“Doctor, we’re still falling to our death!” her senses askew from the warping. She shut her eyes tight so as not to throw up against the Doctor while in freefall. _Ugh._ _There’s an image._

“Really? Hadn’t noticed “replied the Doctor infuriatingly sarcastic. “Yes, we are still falling. No, we are not falling to our death.”

“Hold your breath again” he commanded as she heard the static boom of teleportation.

“We can teleport all we like. But we can’t get out of falling without addressing the _gravity_ of the situation” said the Doctor. She could almost hear the grin plastered on his face.

“Even if we were capable of teleporting away from here, which we’re not. We’d still be moving with the same velocity. Conservation of — .” he squeezed her against him which she now understood as a signal to prepare for another teleport. She shut her eyes, held her breath and puffed her cheeks.

“—Momentum” he continued confidently, as if they hadn’t just bent space. _He’s showing off,_ she realized and found herself half-smiling as the Doctor carried on.

“It’s never the fall that kills you. It’s the sudden _stop.” Teleport._

“So instead, we…. _slow down_.” She caught on. _You clever boy._

“Every time I throw the sonic like this.” He chucked it far above her head, warping to it and catching it again. “I counter the forces taking us down. Cushioning our descent. More or less.” She peeked over his shoulder and realized that they were much closer to the ground now, but also falling much more slowly. Accelerating as she watched. 

“Like a parachute then?” she asked, properly smiling now.

“No. Like successive spatial teleports to slow down our descent. Pay attention Clara.” There was the static boom again.

“Although it’s starting to feel like playing catch with yourself. Bit depressing.”

The teleportation and stench of sulfur assaulted her senses and made it hard to concentrate, but she focused on the ground below them and saw a ribbon of glittering black that they were headed straight for. A river.

“The timing between teleports is crucial, too little too late and you end up a Claracake. Too much too early – Well, that’s fine I suppose. I’d just never stop falling for you” _….What ? Oh Sweet Moses, he’s being charming now._ She let out a laugh as she nuzzled against his chest. They teleported again and again and by now bracing for it had become almost perfunctory. She felt the doctor twist to glance below them and readjust his aim for the screwdriver, throwing it at angles and more frequently. _He was calculating the physics on the fly,_ she realized. _What a swot._ The river hurtled towards them. 

“Brace yourself Clara” he warned seriously, and she couldn’t help but feel like a passenger on a plane. _Air Gallifrey._ She mused, surprising herself with how her outlook on the situation had changed so quickly from absolute resignation to befuddlement to certain survival. They were now falling as if they had simply jumped off a particularly high diving board. _God, I love you._ She tensed as with one final teleport the water swallowed them whole.


	2. Chapter 2

The impact didn’t kill them, but the cold nearly did.

Freezing water shocked the air right out of his lungs. His limbs turned rigid, and he lost his grip on Clara. He began to sink. A strange cacophony filled his ears—millions of wailing, heartbroken voices, as if the river were made of distilled sadness. The voices were worse than the cold. They weighed him down and numbed him to the core.

 _What’s the point of struggling?_ They said. _You’re dead anyway. You’ll never leave this place alive and neither will she. Join us._

 _Clara._ He couldn’t see her in the murky water, so he switched on the sonic. The green tip casting an eerie glow in the gloom. He found her floating downwards to his right, her body limp. He gripped her hand, seemingly jolting her back to reality. She thrashed about before locating him in the emerald gloom and together they kicked upward and broke the surface.

The Doctor gasped, grateful for the air, no matter how sulphurous. The water swirled around them, as if they were caught in the centre of a whirlpool. _The water was alive. They were prey._ The voices got louder the more he got his bearings. His thoughts were being drowned out by the voices as if it had decided to join the band, he struggled to fight through the haze. Though he couldn’t make out their surroundings. He knew this was a river, rivers had shores.

“Land” he croaked. “Go sideways”.

Clara looked near dead with exhaustion. The water seemed to sap her of what little strength she had left. The Doctor hooked one arm around her waist and struggled across the current. The river worked against them, it felt like wading through syrup and all the while the incessant voices continued: _Despair. Give up,_ they said. _It’s not worth it. Nothing ever is. Everything is meaningless and then you die. Death is meaningless. Undignified, boring, inconsequential. Pointless. Always pointless._

“Pointless,” Clara murmured. Her teeth chattered from the cold. She stopped swimming and began to sink.

“Clara!” he yelled, “Clara, the river is messing with your mind. They’re echoes of the dead. Lamentations, their misery, their despair in their final moments.”

“Misery”, she agreed.

“Fight it!”

He kicked and struggled, trying to keep them both afloat. He brought her closer and held her face in his hands, “Clara, think about home. Think about what you would return to. Who you’d return to. Your students. Your family. The people you love. Your future.”

“Doctor…My Doctor….”, She said her eyes beginning to deglaze.

“Yes, speaking _hello_! Come on Clara, you’re way too bossy to let a body of water and depression tell you what to think and do. Where do you want to go next?”

The Doctor started making progress against the current. His limbs felt like wet bags of sand, but Clara was working with him now. He could see the dark line of the shore a stone’s throw away.

“We could visit one of the Orient expresses again- the last one ended rather abruptly. We never even got to dance. On the orient express! It’s practically a felony! Eh? What do you say?”

“I don’t….” she shuddered from the cold. He peered into her face, moving some of the hair plastered on her face.

“I don’t …care…” His hearts sank. “Don’t care where we go ….as long as …..you’re with me”.

“That’s my girl! Now _come on._ Mind you, even I’m craving a nice tropical beach after this. That’s a first . I’m against beaches, much too warm.”

“That’s because you wear _all_ your clothes.” She laughed her musical laugh, and the sound sent a shockwave through the water. The wailing faded to background noise. The Doctor wondered if anyone had ever laughed here before-just a pure, simple laugh of pleasure. He doubted it. _Figures_. He was smiling as they reached the riverbank, feet digging into the sandy bottom. The Doctor and Clara hauled themselves ashore, shivering and gasping, and collapsed on the dark shore.

* * *

Clara wanted to curl up next to the Doctor and go to sleep. She wanted to shut her eyes, hope all of this was just a bad dream, and wake up to find herself back on the TARDIS, cuddled together in the TARDIS library next to a cozy fire, drinking hot chocolate while they told each other about their day apart and decided on their next adventure.

But, no. They were really here. The Schism. At their feet, the river roared past, a flood of liquid wretchedness. The voices continued to echo in her head. At the time, she had felt like she would never be happy again. It’s a feeling she had begun to get familiar with and just like then, the Doctor was there, snapping her out of it and making her laugh. Now that she thought of it, a dance on the Orient Express sounded divine. The atmosphere carried special meaning for her. It’s when she had truly realized her feelings for the Doctor — this Doctor. Her Doctor. In a way that ran deeper than she had ever thought possible. She had realized then that she could live with giving up seeing the wonders of the universe, she could live without all of time and space – so long as she had the Doctor. He was her addiction, the impossible man she couldn’t give up. And here he was, with her even now, against all odds. _Time lord hell,_ he had called it and the bloody idiot had looked into her eyes, smiled and jumped in with her. She sighed. Her breath rattled in her chest.

“Are you okay?” she heard the Doctor ask with concern.

Clara tried to take a deep breath and immediately broke out into a coughing fit. The sulphurous air burned her lungs and prickled her skin. She tried to sit up and gasped in pain.The beach wasn’t sand. They were sitting on a field of jagged black-glass chips, some of which were now embedded in her palms. The Doctor was at her side instantly and gingerly took her hands in his.

“So, the air is acid. The water is misery and the ground, is broken _glass_. Realm of nightmares, seeing it now” she grumbled.

“Well, you can say that about all sand. You actually let your tiny humans play in this. Also, don’t forget the stench. Smells like one of your many, many attempts at baking” the Doctor replied as he slowly picked out the slivers from her palms. “Everything here is designed to hurt and kill” he added with a half-hearted smirk.

Clara managed a smile. She loved him for trying to lift her spirits. _That was them_ , she thought. Flirt with death (and each other) armed with a screwdriver, wit, false bravado, and banter. _Lots of banter_. A lot of the time they’d end up getting one over on the bad guys simply because they were confused and disorientated by their shameless flirting. Her smile widened.

“That was _one_ time.” she defended.

“Clara, you poisoned your father and stepmother... And yourself” he fired back.

“Food poisoning. That’s different. Worth getting Linda though” she said grinning now, eyes never leaving his face. If she’d fallen here by herself, she might have been doomed. This was simply too much. She would’ve curled up and cried, given in to the despair. But she wasn’t alone. She had the Doctor. Now and always. The Doctor and Clara Oswald. _Never give up, never give in._

‘You know now that I think about it, this is far from the worst place we’ve ended up.”

“Give it a minute” he said gruffly as he continued to work on her palms.

“Remember Thedion Four? Why you thought a planet of perpetual acid rain would be a good place to take a girl for lunch I’ll never know”

“Sonny enjoyed it.”

“Sonny is a fish. A _stuffed_ fish” she said rolling her eyes.

“Exactly. _He_ wouldn’t complain about my choice of venue. The perfect companion. Probably fare better in the water too.” he said grumpily.

She laughed and that made him smile in turn. A genuine, honest to God tender smile that only she ever got to see. Ever since last Christmas, he had become so open with her it nearly gave her whiplash. He was starting to be affectionate with her in ways that would have made the previous him blush. He had walked in on her in the bath once, Sonny the stuffed fish in hand and crouched within kissing distance, unperturbed by her state of undress. She had given him her best “come-hither” look then and he had had the audacity to look only mildly terrified. 

“Doctor, wh-OW!” she winced as the Doctor extracted a particularly large obsidian shard. “Sorry” he mumbled and wiped the blood off her palms with his coat sleeve. “Clara, I’m so sorry. About this. About all of this” he said kissing her palm with a tenderness that made her heart skip a beat. _He rolls old school_ .She smiled at him and cupped his face

“It’s okay. I’m okay. As long as we’re together eh?” He smiled half-heartedly, eyes downcast.

“Doctor, what now? What’s the plan?” she asked as he stood and helped her up.

“We need to keep moving. If nothing else, it will stave off the hypothermia” the Doctor said. “Ready?”

She nodded and struggled forward alongside the doctor, chilled to the bone.

She scanned their surroundings. Blood-red clouds floated in the hazy gray air. The sky looked like a thin mix of tomato soup and cement. The black-glass beach stretched inland about fifty yards, then dropped off the edge of a cliff. From where she stood, Clara couldn’t see what was below, but the edge flickered with red light as if illuminated by huge fires.

The Doctor seemed to also have noticed the illumination and bounded forward with more purpose taking off his coat dripping and heavy with depression water. He stopped and stood frozen at the edge of the cliff.

“So, I know where we’re going next.” He said nervously, pointing, “Please don’t push me down”

She joined his side and gripped the Doctor’s hand as they looked below them. _Well, now._

 _“_ You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”


	3. Chapter 3

When they reached the ledge, Clara was sure they’d signed their death warrants.

The cliff dropped more than eighty feet. At the bottom stretched a nightmarish version of the Grand Canyon: a river of fire cutting a path through a jagged obsidian crevasse, the glowing red current casting horrible shadows across the cliff faces. Even from the top of the canyon, the heat was intense. The chill from the river of misery hadn’t yet left Clara’s bones despite the hot, sticky air and even the Doctor seemed to be shivering. Superior time lord biology or no. But now her face felt raw and sunburned and every breath took more effort as if her chest was filled with Styrofoam peanuts. Making it down there seemed certifiably insane.

The Doctor squeezed her hand and nodded to tiny fissure running diagonally from the edge to the bottom. “We can use the ledge there to climb down.” _Of course._ She sighed internally.

Clara went first. The ledge was barely wide enough to allow a toehold. Their hands clawed for any crack in the glassy rock. “So…hell itself?” she inquired.

“Agh don’t mind that. I was being overdramatic. I do that” He said dismissively, unconvincingly. They’d made it roughly a third of the way down the cliff- still high enough up to die if they fell. “This is at worst hell adjacent. You should try high school musicals or one of Jack Harkness’ stag parties. I was begging for the sweet release of death” he added.

“Please, don’t make me laugh.”

“Just trying to keep things light.”

“Gee, thanks.” She grunted, nearly missing one of the ledges. “I’ll have a big ol’ smile on my face as I plummet to my death. Besides I’m distracted enough by the view as is”

“The view?”

“Mhmm, there’s a full moon out tonight” she said looking up at his rear with a playful smirk.

“Clara!”

“Dear lord, thank you for this gift” she said laughing as the Doctor rolled his eyes.

They kept going, one step at a time. Clara’s eyes stung with sweat. Her arms trembled. But to her amazement, she finally made it to the bottom of the cliff. Her vision was blurry, her throat felt blistered and her stomach was clenched tighter than a fist. She took a step forward and stumbled. The Doctor caught her. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just a wobble. So where are we headed?”

“To our death statistically”. Clara glared. _Not helping._

‘Uh sorry, just to the river of fire. Just a little further” he said reassuringly. Funny the phrases that have become completely normal in her life.

They staggered over slick glass ledges, around massive boulders, avoiding stalagmites that would’ve impaled them with any slip of the foot. Their tattered clothes steamed from the heat of the river, but they kept going until they reached the banks. The Doctor scanned the river with his screwdriver and examined the readouts before nodding.

“We have to drink” said the Doctor. _Ha?_

Clara took a breath and counted to 5 before responding. “Drink …um…drink fire?”

“I told you before that this is the equivalent of the underworld. The creatures and entities that are imprisoned here or worse, _born_ here need sustenance and revitalization. It’d be a poor hellish damnation if the victims were to die within minutes and I don’t see a red cross or a Burger King nearby do you?”

“Um, no”

“Didn’t think so. The Pyriphlegethon keeps them going so that they can subsist. Think of it like a micro-dose of regeneration energy— only hellish and not limited to time lords.”

“Oh, joy. Sundaes and rainbows, you are. You know, that accent of yours really doesn’t help when you’re saying things like – Hang on, you said Phlegethon? Like Dante’s Divine Comedy – seventh circle of hell?”

The Doctor crouched next to the river and watched the flames lick the edges of the bank. The orange glow casting a deathly shadow over his face, making him seem like the motif of death itself.

“Ten points to the English teacher” he said lowly. “A middle school English teacher —why have you read Dante’s inferno?” He inquired, equal parts confused and ...impressed? She shrugged “I get bored when you’re not around.” He let out a breath, shook his head and continued “I was hoping you wouldn’t catch on. Many myths and legends throughout the universe are based on some kind of truth. You remember Robin hood don’t you?”, a pained smile etched itself on his skeletal profile.

“The Schism exists outside time and by extension across it. Question: Is it a coincidence that so many civilizations and religions throughout history have concepts of hell that are so thematically similar? I can tell you that the ideas are not limited to Earth. Of course, there are more… _creative_ beliefs out there but many conform to a certain definition” Continued the Doctor in that peculiar, pedagogical way of his—as if he was giving a lecture on Anthropology, not highlighting their current doom. It made it easier. The detachment.

“In my 2000 years I have seen many atrocities, especially during the Time War and many of their origins can be traced back to this place. The horde of travesties. The Mean-Whiles and Never-Weres. The Emanations. Even the time lords themselves. We became what we did through prolonged exposure to the Untempered Schism over billions of years. It’s the source of our being and knowledge, our inventions. Good and bad. The confession dials. Our regenerations. The TARDIS matrices. The weapons of the time war, they’re all derived from _time,_ and this is it’s underbelly. I’m not even sure I would be able to regenerate here” he added. “I wasn’t lying when I said Hell was a literary exaggeration, but if Hell _were_ a real place. It wouldn’t be for thieves, murderers and carol-singers. It would be for the things that are here.” he finished, his baritone voice reaching a timbre that resonated in her bones. _He sure knew how to set the mood._

“Wow, okay. I think I preferred it when you were being vague about it all.” Clara replied a little concerned about him now. She had noticed how the Doctor had lumped the existence of the Time lords as one of the hellish travesties. She knew that he had a complicated relationship with his home and people. But this was on a whole different level entirely. Overtime, this Doctor had told her snippets of his life. His children, his family, his home, his nightmares. She was _there_ in the _last day_ of the Time war. There with him, apparently with _thirteen_ of him as he had explained to Clara once- including _this_ him. Her floofy-haired stick insect. Her impossible man. Her Doctor. That settled things.

An idea surfaced into her mind, one that she had been trying to stamp down ever since they had gotten their bearings in this place. Since the fall, since the river.

“Doctor, are …are we trapped here?” she asked, panicking slightly.

“No, I just haven’t thought of a way out yet.” he said lowly.

“Clara, listen to me. I would never ask this of you if I didn’t think it was necessary for us to survive. That river did more damage than you know. We need to rejuvenate ourselves, if we are to get through this and out the other end. If we wait any longer, we’ll pass out and become prey to who knows what” He said taking her hand in his. “You’re trying to fight through it but I know you are so exhausted you can barely stay conscious. Yet there you stand. If anyone can survive this place, it’s you. _Us._ The Doctor and Clara Oswald. Trust me.”

She closed her eyes and took and deep breath and clamped down on her panic. “Always”

 _This was her life now. For better or for worse, she wouldn’t have it any other way. Sometimes the only choices we have are bad ones._ She turned to the river and winced as cinders sprayed and curled around their faces.

“But Doctor, that’s fire. How can we —”

“Like this.” The Doctor thrust his hands into the river.

He cupped the fiery liquid in his palms and raised it to his mouth. He gulped it down and collapsed, gagging and retching, his body shaking violently. 

“DOCTOR!” Clara grabbed his shoulders and just managed to stop him from rolling into the river. He came to after a while.

“It worked” he croaked “Clara, you’ve got to drink too. It’s safe. It only _looks_ like fire and lava.” _Yeah, sure. Reassuring sight, that was._

But it was a testament to how much she had faith in this idiot that she actually reached in to the flames.

On first contact, the fire wasn’t painful. It felt cold, which probably meant it was _so_ hot it was overloading her nerves. Before she could change her mind, she cupped the fiery liquid in her palms and raised it to her mouth. She expected a taste like gasoline. It was _so_ much worse. After barely nibbling it, she thought her respiratory system was going to implode. Drinking from the Pyriphlegethon was like gulping down a ghost chili smoothie. Her sinuses filled with liquid flame. Her mouth felt like it was being deep-fried. Her eyes shed boiling tears, and every pore on her face popped. She was dimly aware of the Doctor cradling her in his lap, back against the river, his hands cupping her cheeks.

The convulsions passed. She took a ragged breath and managed to sit up. She felt horribly weak and nauseous , but her next breath came more easily as if her lungs and skin had been reset, ready to be scalded and blistered once more. The chill from the river of misery evaporated and she felt properly warm again. Sputtering and coughing , she looked up at the Doctor’s terrified face. He seemed to be holding his breath. She smacked her lips and scrunched her face.

“Ugh, “she said “ Spicy, yet disgusting”

The Doctor laughed weakly. “I’ve had worse” he said pointedly, eyes wide. She thumped on the chest in mock indignation.

“That did the trick”

“For now,” he said. “The trouble is, we’re still in the Schism. No apparent way out.”

“This place could just be the beginning , the first tiny part of the abyss, the front steps .”

“The welcome mat “she muttered. They both gazed up at the blood-coloured clouds swirling in the gray haze.

“We’ll find a way out” the Doctor said. “We always do.”

Clara shuddered. She knew he was right. Still…when she tried to imagine a plan that could succeed, the logistics overwhelmed her. This was beyond her scope of comprehension and reasoning. This was beyond her. Period.

She decided not to mention any of that. After that depressing river, Clara had heard enough whining and moaning to last a lifetime. She stood and helped the Doctor up. His profile silhouetted against the Pyriphlegethon. 

“Well. Two choices now : upstream or downstream ” She took a deep breath , grateful at least that her lungs didn’t hurt. “If we stay close to the river, we’ll have a way to heal ourselves. If we go downstream —“.

It happened so fast, Clara would have been dead if she’d been on her own.

The Doctor’s eyes locked on something behind her. Clara whirled as a massive dark shape hurtled down at her — a snarling, monstrous blob with spindly barbed legs and glinting eyes and suddenly, the world was black.


	4. Chapter 4

The static boom sounded in Clara’s ears as colours coalesced into the world around her. They were standing exactly where they had been. A horrible wail echoed throughout the canyon as Clara turned to see giant spider-like legs blacken and disintegrate, engulfed by the flaming river.

“Wh-what happened ?” she asked the Doctor. His expression was grim and calculating as they watched the scene before them.

“We teleported.” He replied pulling out the sonic and scanning the river “I managed to time it exactly right and it passed straight through, into the river.” He examined the readings from the screwdriver intently and continued “The vortex manipulator was enslaved to the screwdriver so that’s where we ended up – exactly where we were. Give or take a few centimetres.”

“I barely processed it. How did you react so fast?”

The Doctor shrugged, “Battle instincts fresh from Trenzalore. Whatever it was, its been absorbed into the Pyriphlegethon- no trace of its original makeup left behind.”

“Second time since getting here that this thing has saved our lives.” She patted the leather strap around her wrist fondly. “Glad it didn’t short circuit or something from our landing in the river back there.”

“It’s a highly sophisticated and _inane_ piece of junk that allows you to move through space-time. You’re surprised it’s waterproof?”

“Hey, I’m just saying. Vortex manipulator 2. TARDIS nil” Clara teased, arms raised in mock surrender.

“ _Moving on_ ” said the Doctor pointedly, “You were saying…downstream?”

“Mm, yeah. Assuming the river flows deeper into this place, it probably leads into more dangerous territory which —”

“—is where we’re likely to find a way out”, the Doctor finished. He looked Clara up and down with scrutiny. “You okay?”

“Oh yeah. Just peachy. Who else can say they’ve drunk lava…in Hell. No-B-O-D-Y That’s who”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit you know” the Doctor grumbled. Clara stuck out her tongue petulantly.

“You’re never going to let me live down the _Hell itself_ thing are you?”

“Nope”

The Doctor sighed and held out his arm to her. Clara accepted it gratefully and squeezed it with both of her own. “Once more unto the breach” he said. They were off.

He would never admit it. But unlike Chin-boy , this Doctor had taken Clara on romantic walks on numerous occasions. This wasn’t one of them.

They followed the River Phlegethon, stumbling over the glassy black terrain, jumping crevices and hiding behind rocks whenever they thought they saw a flicker of movement. The heat from the river baked her skin. Every breath was like inhaling sulfur-scented fiberglass. When they needed a drink, the best they could do was sip some refreshing liquid fire. _You know, the good stuff._

At the very least, her various cuts and bruises had faded and she’d shaken off the hopeless cold from the depressing river. On the other hand, her grey sweater and denim trousers were caked in mud and looked like they had been through a hurricane of broken glass. She was thirsty, hungry and scared out of her mind (though she wasn’t going to tell the Doctor that) and weary to her bones. _But hey, silver lining_.

They trudged along, following the river as it cut through the harsh landscape. After a few more miles, they found themselves at the edge of another massive cliff. The River Phlegethon spilled over the side in jagged tiers of fiery waterfalls.

Clara’s heart leapt into her throat. Even if she and the Doctor reached the bottom of the cliff alive, they didn’t have much to look forward to. The landscape below them was a bleak, ash-grey plain bristling with black trees, like insect hair. The ground was pocked with blisters.

Suddenly, Clara wasn’t hungry anymore.

The Phlegethon flowed in the same direction until about halfway across the plain, where it met another river of black water—maybe the river they fallen in? The two floods combined in a steaming, boiling cataract and flowed on as one toward a bank of black fog that swallowed the horizon like storm front.

The longer Clara looked into that storm of darkness, the less she wanted to go there. It could be hiding anything—an ocean, a bottomless pit, an army of monsters. 

She peered over the edge of the cliff.

“Wish we could fly.” She muttered. The Doctor braced her against the edge and rubbed her arms.

“I’d settle for a hang glider. Might be fun.”

“Maybe not a good idea” Clara pointed. Above them, dark winged shapes spiralled in and out of the bloodred clouds.

“What are they?” Clara wondered.

“I suspect we’ll find out. There was what I theorize, a Racnoss back there. This place probably has all sorts of creatures.

“Including the kind that eats hang gliders” Clara muttered.

“We’ll have to climb. We _could_ use the trick with the vortex manipulator to get down there. Throw the sonic and zap down. But with no way of knowing what’s actually down there…Hard to say if the screwdriver would even survive the trip.”

Something must have showed on her face because the Doctor raised his hands in surrender. “Clara, I assure you, my craftmanship is top-notch. But, I didn’t exactly have this in mind. Water is one thing. Flames of damnation. Another.” Clara sighed. It was clear where they needed to go. The dark horizon. She could barely contain her enthusiasm.

* * *

As they started down the cliff, the Doctor concentrated on the challenges at hand: keeping his footing, avoiding rockslides that would alert any creatures below to their presence and of course, making sure he and Clara didn’t plummet to their deaths.

About halfway down the precipice, Clara said, “Stop, okay? Just a quick break.”

Her legs wobbled so badly, he cursed himself for not calling a rest earlier. They sat together on a ledgenext to a roaring fiery waterfall. The Doctor put an arm around Clara, and she leaned against him, shaking from exhaustion. He wasn’t much better. His stomach felt like it had shrunk to the size of a gumdrop.

“Things could be worse,” Clara muttered.

“You think?” he asked incredulously. This was looking to be one of the top contenders, even by his standards.

She snuggled against him. Her hair smelled of smoke , and if he closed his eye, he could almost imagine they were camping underneath the stars on a planet in the Avalon cluster.

“We could have fallen into the Lethe,” she said. “Lost all our memories.”

“Oh, the poster girl for optimism you are.” His skin crawled just thinking about it. He’d had enough amnesia for all his lifetimes. His tenth life, the chameleon circuit. Time lord memories worked differently. Time was not of relevance to time lord neurology. It might’ve happened over a millennia ago, but it hadn’t faded from memory. He remembered his stark grief in losing the life of normalcy he craved, a life of peace. A human life. He did however view it through a different lens, he had been so naïve. Such things were denied this time lord, he was reminded of that fact with punishing agony on Trenzalore, having sent his Clara away- breaking her trust, lying to her for the sake of the universe. Fighting a pointless war, for the sake of his people. _Gallifrey._ If not for Clara, that would have been his end, she had saved him just like she had saved Gallifrey, by the simple virtue of being Clara Oswald. He wiped some soot gently from her face and placed a light kiss on the top of her head.

 _No, his memories were not to be tampered with._ With all the bad, came the good, the beautiful, the cherished and the loved. Came _life_. He remembered River’s face when he had met her for the first time, how she had looked into his eyes and seen _nothing._ The complete absence of everything they had been, everything they could have been, the future he had now lived. He remembered how she had lived in fear of that day, he remembered living it. In hindsight, he recalled the exact moment it broke her. He wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone. Least of all, someone he loved. Least of all, his _wife. His other half._ Gallifreyans treated matrimony as such, a fixed point predestined across time and space. Two halves forming a singular entity that was always meant to be, indelibly etched into time. Time lords, with their ego, regenerations and lifespans took that to a whole other level. In that regard, he and River had had quite the wedding ceremony. She had been hysterical when he had told her what a marriage would have been like on his home planet.

“Why would you think of the River Lethe?” he asked Clara silhouetted against the fiery waterfall behind her. She stared at him for a long while before mutely pointing behind her. _Oh._

“Clara, If all of the Greek myths had equal basis in reality, we should just roll over now. Sometimes human imagination can be more disturbing than anything the universe has to throw.”

“Well, the Phlegethon from Dante’s divine comedy _is_ apparently real…” she shrugged. “How does that work anyway? You said the Schism existed across time all pompous-like as if that explained anything”. His lips were so parched, it hurt to smile. Clara’s eyes were wide with curiosity and withing those beautiful pools of chocolate he saw that familiar glint of wonder, despite the exhaustion, despite where they were. _Oh, Clara._

She was still every bit the girl who had asked him if Time was made of strawberries. Or had that been him? _The impossible girl, with starlight in her veins._

“Time travel is always possible in dreams. I’ve told you that I think. And so sometimes is the ability to see _through_ time. Through the vortex. Particularly for fixed points in time. Ancient Greece is one such place, with it being the cradle of human civilization and in so being – the cradle of humanity’s future across the universe”

“So you’re saying whoever dreamt up the concepts of the Phlegethon in the myths had actually _seen_ the real thing somehow. Experienced it to some degree.”

“More or less, dreams can often be miraculously close to the truth” he smiled sadly. “The phenomenon is particularly notable in those with vivid imaginations. The geniuses, the storytellers, the philosophers who make it their business to think up worlds and ideas beyond the norms of reality or question the very fabric of it’s existence.” finished the Doctor.

He remembered how Shakespeare and seen through his psychic paper. He also remembered some very _interesting_ conversations with some of the renowned philosophers of human history. His ninth regeneration and Diogenes had gotten along almost _too well._

 _"_ Makes you wonder, what else is here?" 

”We should keep moving." he said evasively, "You want more fire to drink?”

“Ugh, I’ll pass”

They struggled to their feet. The rest of the cliff looked impossible to descend—nothing more than a crosshatching of tiny ledges—but they kept climbing down. The Doctor’s body went on autopilot. His fingers cramped. He felt blisters popping up on his ankles. He fleetingly wondered if they would die of starvation, or if the firewater would keep them going. He remembered the punishment of Tantalus, who’d been permanently stuck in a pool of water under a fruit tree but couldn’t reach either food or drink.

A billion years later, with a dozen new blisters on his feet, he reached the bottom, helped Clara down, and they collapsed on the ground.

Ahead of them stretched miles of wasteland, bubbling with monstrous larvae and big insect-hair trees. To their right, the Phlegethon split into branches that etched the plain, widening into a delta of smoke and fire. To the north, along the main route of the river, the ground was riddled with cave entrances. Here and there, spires of rock jutted up like exclamation points. Under his hand, the soil felt alarmingly warm and smooth. He tried to grab a handful, then realized that under a thin layer of dirt and debris, the ground was a single vast membrane…like skin.

He didn’t mention it to Clara, but he started to feel like something was watching them—something vast and malevolent. He couldn’t zero in on it, because the presence was all around them. _Watching_ was the wrong word, too. That implied eyes, and this thing was simply aware of them. The ridges above them now looked less like steps and more like rows of massive teeth. The spires of rock looked like broken ribs.

Clara stood, wiping soot from her face. She gazed toward the darkness on the horizon. “We’re going to be completely exposed, crossing this plain.”

About a hundred yards ahead of them, a blister burst on the ground. A monster clawed its way out… glistening with slick fur, a seal-like body, and stunted human limbs. It managed to crawl a few yards before something shot out of the nearest cave, so fast that the Doctor could only register a dark green reptilian head. The monster snatched the squealing creature in its jaws and dragged it into the darkness. He suspected that Clara hadn’t even processed the second creature.

He swallowed down the sour taste of firewater. “Oh, yeah. This’ll be fun.”

Clara helped him to his feet. He took one last look at the cliffs, but there was no going back.


	5. Chapter 5

They started walking, trying to avoid the cave entrances, sticking close to the bank of the river. Clara followed the Doctor through the wasteland, tracing the route of the Phlegethon as they approached the storm front of darkness. Every so often, they stopped to drink firewater, which kept them alive, but Clara wasn’t happy about it. Her throat felt like she was constantly gargling with battery acid.

Her only comfort was the Doctor. Clara knew him well enough to know that he had to be just as scared and miserable as she was, if not more. He knew things about this place he had elected to not tell her just yet. That much she could tell. But every so often he would glance over and smile, or squeeze her hand. He looked at her as if he was drawing strength from her mere presence, as she was his. She loved him for trying to make her feel better.

Wherever they were going, she hoped it had clean restrooms and snack machine. She repressed the giggles. Yes, she was definitely losing it. Clara hobbled along trying to ignore the rumble in her stomach.

 _Keep walking,_ she told herself.

 _Cheeseburgers,_ her stomach replied.

 _Shut up,_ she thought.

 _With fries,_ her stomach complained.

They continued along the shore, the liquid inferno lighting their way. Clara plodded along, half in a stupor, trying to analyse their surroundings, trying to form a plan. Plans were their specialty; but it was hard to strategize with her stomach growling and her throat baking. The fiery water may have revitalized her and given her strength, but it didn’t do anything for her hunger and thirst. The river wasn’t about making you feel good, Clara guessed. It just kept you going so you could experience more excruciating pain. Her head began to droop from exhaustion.

After a few more miles, Clara’s feet felt like mush. She marched along, following the Doctor, listening to the monotonous sound of his light footfalls.

 _Stay alert,_ she told herself, but it was hard. Her thoughts were as numb as her legs. From time to time, the Doctor took her hand or made an encouraging comment; but she could tell the dark landscape was getting to him as well.

 _He fell into the Schism to be with you,_ said a voice in her head. _If he dies, it will be your fault._

“Stop it,” she said aloud.

The Doctor frowned. “What?”

“No, not you.” She tried for a reassuring smile, but she couldn’t quite muster one. “Talking to myself. This place…it’s messing with my mind. Giving me dark thoughts.”

The worry-lines deepened around his stormy green eyes. They kept moving.

She was tempted to ask for a rest, but she didn’t want to stop. Not here in this cold, dark place. The black fog seeped into her body, turning her bones into moist Styrofoam. She wondered what they would find once they reached the stormfront and what they would have to do to get out of here.

 _A ridiculous hope,_ said the voice in her head. _All you’ve done is doomed the Doctor with you. Haven’t you done enough? Haven’t you hurt him enough?_

Clara was tempted to shout back at the voice, but she resisted. Even if she were going crazy, she didn’t want to _look_ like she was going crazy.She desperately needed something to lift her spirits. A drink of actual water. A moment of sunlight. A warm bed. A kind word from her nan.

 _I need sceptical. Clever, critical. I don’t need mopey._ Realization dawned on her. So _that’s_ what this reminded her of. The gnawing association in the back of her head. This place with its river of lava and hazy skies blazing orange looked an awful lot like the volcanic landscape she had dreamt up on that fateful day. Hell of an entirely different sort. The day she had made the worst mistake of her life. When she had been at her lowest. When she had betrayed the Doctor. Now here she was, forced to drink the lava she had thrown the keys into. _Karmic justice?_ She nearly laughed. She had to admit that the beach of broken glass was new. The Doctor continued in front of her, hand clasping hers. She wondered if he still thought about it. About what she had done. What she would have done to him then if given the opportunity. She had realized that day, that despite everything, despite his begging from both ends of a dying phonecall, despite the moon incident and her realizations on the orient express, she had failed to see him. Failed to understand him. She had walked into the TARDIS, smiled, _lied through her teeth_ and proceeded to tear his world asunder. She had screamed and threatened. She had known exactly what she was doing, she just hadn’t cared. And what had he done? Just let her do it. He had taken every hit. She couldn’t imagine how much hurt it must have caused him. In the months before Christmas, his face from then had become seared into her memory, every expression, his eyes, _his smile_. Because that’s what he had done hadn't he ? After it had all come down, the Doctor had _smiled_ at her and then proceeded to help her, no questions asked. Gone to Hell, for no other reason than that _she_ had asked. Now, here they were again. And he had jumped in, hand in hand just like now. _You’re not getting away from me. Not again. Never again. Not if I can help it._ The very thought made her want to sob.

She squeezed his hand, brought it to her lips and placed a tender kiss to one of his knuckles. His ring finger. She looked up at the Doctor,and was surprised to see a tenderness matching hers. She had expected confusion, incredulity and general owlishness. But this, the way he was looking at her now. This was the certain, indescribable something he had started to reveal to her ever since last Christmas. They had stopped walking and the Doctor turned to her, “Are you really okay?” he asked softly.

_This is it Clara, the darkest day. The blackest hour. Chin up, shoulders back. Let’s see what we’re made of. You and I._

Clara exhaled deeply. She kissed his hand once more in a gesture mirroring his own from earlier.

“Mhmm. Just…Thank you.”

It was odd thing to say under the circumstances. But the Doctor didn’t ask what for, only smiled that _particular smile_. The one that had haunted her waking moments for months. He brought her close and pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

“You want to stop for a while?” he asked seriously, despite knowing how tactically unsound the idea was.

“No it’s alright.” She straightened her back, suddenly feeling a lot better. “Chin up, shoulders back. Let’s see what we’re made of. You and I”

Side by side. Hand in hand, they picked their way across the ashen wasteland as red lightning flashed overhead in the poisonous clouds. Just another lovely day in the dungeon of existence and creation. Clara couldn’t see far in the hazy air, but the longer they walked, the more certain she became that the entire landscape was a downward curve.

“It’s getting darker” the Doctor noticed. Clara couldn’t tell if it was actually darker, but the air did seem colder and thicker, as if they’d stepped into a different microclimate. She pressed against the Doctor for warmth. He put his arm around her. It felt good being close to him, but she couldn’t relax.

Suddenly the Doctor froze in his tracks. He was on high alert, as if someone had snapped a rubber band against the base of his neck. He whipped out his screwdriver and scanned a three-sixty, stormy eyes bright with alarm.

“What is it?”

He held up a hand for silence. She wasn’t sure what had set him off. _Battle instincts,_ he had said. Nothing looked different.

“Something’s moving above us.” The Doctor muttered. “Gather up”

Clara and the Doctor stood back to back, next to one of the emaciated trees. She realized that the tree trunk was quivering.

A few yards away, another tree shuddered.

Clara strained her eyes, trying to see above them in the dark, but nothing moved. The sonic continued to whir behind her. She had almost decided she was being paranoid when —

“Here they come”

The first monster dropped to the ground only five feet away: a wrinkled hag with batlike wings, brass talons, and glowing red eyes. She wore a tattered dress of black silk, and her face was twisted and ravenous, like a demonic grandmother in the mood to kill. They carried whips. That didn’t comfort Clara, their talons looked plenty dangerous.

The Doctor grunted as another one dropped in front of them. Soon there were half a dozen surrounding them- forming a ring. More hissed in the trees above. A perfect trap.

“What are you?” she demanded.

“The Arai” hissed the Doctor. “The curses! This is bad. I never thought – not since the Time war.”

“What do you want?!” the Doctor roared.

A voice cackled maliciously. _To curse you, of course! To destroy you a thousand times in the name of_ _the eternal darkness. The Night._

Clara tried to locate the speaker, but none of the demons had moved their mouths. Their eyes looked dead; their expressions were frozen, like a puppet’s. The voice simply floated overhead like a movie narrator’s, as if a single mind controlled all the creatures.

 _“_ Only a thousand times ?” the Doctor said. “Oh, good …I thought we were in trouble.”

The circle of demon ladies closed in. 


	6. Chapter 6

It was a relief when they attacked.

Terrifying? Sure. Laughable odds of survival? Oh, certainly. But this was familiar ground. This he understood. Wandering through the darkness, waiting to be attacked — the sheer boredom was driving him crazy. Boredom. Definitely just the boredom.

They’d entered some sort of forest. Black trees towered above them into the gloom, bare of branches and looking like they were made from volcanic glass.

Clara pressed against his shoulder, “Curses?”

“Don’t let them touch you” he warned. “They’re like the Reapers. Manifestations of time.Weapons of the Time War. The Arai, not the Reapers. Although...”

_Doctor! We have so many curses for you!_ Cackled the weird voice-over, like the entire forest was speaking. _You stopped the Time War, thwarted as at every possible turn, trapped us in the Schism. Now, you will suffer under the weight of your victories._

“Weapons? How are these things weapons?”

There was that ear-grating laughter again. _Go on Doctor. Tell your companion. Tell her about the transgressions of the Time Lords._

The Doctor looked at Clara, brow scrunched and teeth working at her lips. Her inflatable eyes the size of cantaloupes. He could practically feel her heart racing. He sighed.

“During the Time war, both sides were capable of time travel. History was the battlefield. Imagine it Clara, a never-ending war constantly rewritten. Someone you spoke to everyday for years, only to find out the next day that they never existed. Planets appeared from out of nowhere. Solar systems would find themselves suddenly without stars. Memory was the only constant – the only truth. And in the forges of the all-consuming fires of the war, the time lords engineered _them_ ” he growled stabbing a finger at the ring of ghastly apparitions, unable to keep the hatred from seeping into his voice. “Abominations born from the potentiality of altered futures. Fundamentally similar to the Reapers, except instead of erasing you from reality, they erase _your_ reality and substitute a cursed timeline. They reach back along your timestream and alter a single detail, a detail you hold close to your heart. A single event which when toppled can crush all hope and doom your existence. Changing your history, cursing your present, poisoning your future.”

The firewater in his stomach started crawling up his throat and his fists clenched. _Calm down. Time is life. Buy time. Sit down by the riverbank and wait long enough and the bodies of your enemies will float by….._

_Keep talking. Focus._

He started walking around the clearing. Working the room.

“You would have no _idea_ that you once lived different life and neither would anyone else. Except _the Time Lords_.” he spat with vitriol.

“They wouldn’t work on the Daleks or the cybermen, it’s why they made such great soldiers. But all the other civilizations that allied themselves against the Time Lords? The deceived? The enslaved ? Let these uglies loose on a civilization at the right time and place, and all you had to do was sit back and watch while your enemies destroyed themselves. The deeper into the war, the greater the horror, the more powerful they became. Your standards change you see. The more you endure, the worse your concept of _worst_ gets. The more you struggle, the stronger the hope that fuels you.”

“Civilizations were decimated by their hope snatched away. _It will get better one day, you think, it can’t last forever, things could always be worse_. Except in the Time War, it _did_ last forever and we ensured that it _always_ got worse and we let the victims decide how and why” he laughed drily.

“Yes, the Curses agreed. _So much hope in you and your companions. Your past, your influence, your future. So many victories to overturn. So much to feed on. But you’re a Time Lord. So we’ll let you choose, which loss will you die from Doctor. Choose, or we will rip you apart !”_

He whirled to face them. “I appreciate the offer,” he said “But I don’t accept curses from strangers. Clara can throw you some though. She is a very colourful person when she wants to be”

The spirits bared their fangs. More leaped from the black trees, flapping their leathery wings. The nearest demon lunged for Clara. Her claws extended like bony switchblades.

He pulled Clara back and stepped between them. The side of his chest flared with pain. He stumbled back, clamping his hand to his ribcage. His fingers came away wet and red.

“Doctor! You’re bleeding” Clara cried.

“Yeah. Noticed. Thanks. It’s fine, I wear black and red for a reason”

He waited for his reality to change. As a time lord, he would have the ability to retain both versions of reality. Rassilon’s failsafe. The old crone would never allow his weapons capable of being used against him. But….nothing happened. _What?_

 _How interesting. We can see into your timestream. We see your future Doctor. Saviour of Gallifrey, the Beast of Trenzalore, the lone protector for 900 years._ They cackled. _It seems the Time Lords wish to pay you back personally. Something awaits you in the near future child of Gallifrey, a hell that exceeds our vision or comprehension. Your current timeline is worse than anything we can devise. Anything you can imagine. You are already cursed._

His chest burned. The winged hags pressed in, their breath sour, their eyes burning with glee. _We confess…_ They laughed collectively, as if sharing a private joke, mirth rolling off in waves. _We cannot alter your timeline. But, we can still feast on the body of a Time Lord- the essence of the Time Vortex. We can still …..rip you apart!_

One of the demons lunged at him. Instinctively, Clara stepped in and used its momentum to swerve into the ground, while she brought her elbow down on the creature’s head.

“No Clara!” _Too late._

As soon as the blow connected, the Arai turned to dust. His stomach dropped. It wasn’t like she had a choice; he knew she was acting on instinct. He would have done the same thing. But instantly Clara dropped and cried in alarm.

“I can’t see!” She touched her face, looking around wildly. Her wide eyes were pure white.

The Doctor ran to her side as the Curses cackled _. The companion’s curse. The girl who would see the universe, wonders beyond her dream….. Sees no more._

“Clara, I’m here” the Doctor promised. He put his arm around her, but as the Curses advanced, he didn’t know how he could protect either of them.

Clara gripped the Doctor’s hand. “Which way? “she whispered. He understood. Their only chance was to run- but that wasn’t any chance at all. They wouldn’t be able to outrun them. He needed a plan, he needed _half_ a plan. He looked towards the forest. _Wood. His sonic would be useless._ Not that it’s any good right now. Frankly ever since getting here it’s be-

He frowned. Something Clara said came back to him. It clicked then. He realized what he would have to do. Half a plan.

“Left!” the Doctor yelled

He dropped his sonic on the ashen ground and dragged Clara, barrelling through the Curses to clear a path. For whatever reason, he seemed to be immune to their timeline shift. Their curses. The implications of that sent a chill down his spine but right this second, it was their advantage.

The pain in his chest flared with every step. He wove between the trees, leading Clara behind him, running at full sprint despite her blindness. The Doctor realized just how much she trusted him to get her out of this. But if she was permanently blind…No. He supressed the surge of panic. He would cross that bridge later. _Prioritize._ First, they had to escape. _Think. Use the strength of your enemy to your advantage. Clara was blind. Does that help in any way?_

Leathery wings beat the air above them. Angry hissing and the cracks of whips signalled the demons hot on their tail. They ran deeper and deeper into the forest. Skeletal obsidian trunks soaring high above them. No foliage. No cover. Just obstacles to impede their demonic advance. _Gain some distance._ They were sitting ducks out there at the edge. Now, they were prey on the run. They were game. _Best kind of bait._ As they ran past one of the black trees, he noticed at the periphery of his vision a specific tree, rotting and hollowing in the centre. He veered towards it, the Arai followed. He summoned all his strength to punch right where the structural integrity of the tree was compromised, he felt the bark give under his fist and swiped his arm outward from within the hollowed trunk. The weight of the tree began to shift. He whirled to the opposite side and pushed with all his might before sprinting away, Clara in tow. He heard the tree topple, followed by the satisfying crunch of the several dozen Curses as they were smashed flat. It bought them a few precious seconds, but not enough. They continued to run.

Suddenly the darkness in front of them became thicker. The Doctor realized what it meant just in time. He grabbed Clara right before they both charged off the side of the cliff.

“What?” she cried. “What is it?”

“Cliff,” he gasped. “Big cliff.”

“Which way, then?”

The Doctor couldn’t see how far the cliff dropped. It could be ten feet or a thousand. There was also no telling what was at the bottom. _This wouldn’t be enough. They hadn’t travelled far enough._

Two options: right or left, following the edge of cliff. He was about to choose randomly when a winged demon descended in front of him, hovering over the void on her bat wings.

 _Did you have a nice walk?_ asked the collective voice, echoing all around them.

The Doctor turned. The Arai poured out of the woods, forming a crescent around them. One grabbed Clara’s arm. She cried out and twisted to flip the monster over her shoulder, kicking it over the cliff in a move that would have made a martial artist proud. The demon dissolved midair and fell into the void. But when Clara straightened, she looked stunned and afraid as well as blind. Afraid for the first time since getting here.

“Doctor?” she called, panic creeping into her voice.

“Yes?”

“Doctor!” Clara’s voice cracked and trembled. “Please come back, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“Don’t…..Don’t leave me.”

“Clara, I’m right here!” He turned on the _arai,_ shaking with anger. “What did you do to her?”

The eyes of the demons blurred together like their voices. His sides throbbed. The pain in his chest was worse, as if someone was slowly twisting a dagger.

_We did nothing, the demons said. Your beloved has unleashed a special curse—one of her choosing. Her worst reality._

“Doctor, I’m sorry for betraying you.”

His stomach dropped. _No._

Her body wracked with sobs just like it had on the TARDIS that day. An echo of the events as he remembered them. He frowned. _Hold on. That didn’t make sense._

“The keys. The last key. I…didn’t mean to. I…I’m so sorry. Forgive me. Please”

“I did Clara! I always will !” He tried to put his arm on her shoulder, but she backed away moving into the throng of demons.

“Clara! Come back here”

“Doctor?” Clara spread her arms, trying to find him. The Arai backed up, letting her stumble blindly into their ranks. _This wasn’t right. Yes, it was cruel. It was all sorts of wrong but the wrongness wasn’t right either._ His mind raced, working through the implications as the demons approached him, enclosing Clara amongst themselves.

Clearly, Clara was experiencing a reality in which he had abandoned her when she had needed him the most. A different version of that fateful day, where her betrayal had hurt him enough to turn his back on her. It didn’t make any sense. He couldn’t imagine it. But more than that, he couldn’t _feel_ it. If the timeline had shifted, he would have felt it. He was a Time Lord, he would share her version of events as well as the truth. Yet…. _Question your assumptions. If something doesn’t make sense. One or more of your assumptions must be wrong. Because if something didn’t make sense. How can it be real ?_

He looked around him, looked at the cliff, the demons, the cliff. _The Schism? Did the Curses work differently here somehow? No, that can’t be. This was their birthplace as well as their prison. No one knows a prison better than the imprisoned. Think!_

Clara wandered among the demons, desperately calling his name. He longed to run to her, but he knew the arai wouldn’t allow it. The only reason they hadn’t killed her yet was that they were enjoying her misery. The Doctor clenched his jaw. He had to keep these leathery hags focused on him and protect Clara as long as he could. _Assumption: Clara destroyed one of the Curses, they reached back along her timestream and altered events to a timeline where events unfolded in the worst possible way. A subjective notion._

 _Fact: He remembered the events of that fateful day exactly as it had happened, the timeline hadn’t shifted…_.. _Proposition….Hypothesis….Answer …..Which means …._

_There’s the other half of the plan._

He ran towards the demons, taking advantage of his apparent immunity to their curses. He tried to make his way towards Clara, but she was just out of his reach, calling his name as she staggered among the demons. As the Doctor blundered toward her, one of the Arai pounced and sank its teeth into his thigh. He roared and brought down his entire weight on the creature. It disintegrated. A beat. _No shift._

He managed to reach Clara and dragged her back towards the edge of the cliff, his grip tight on her wrist and the leather strap around it as he fought through the horde Disintegrating Curses left and right. He shielded Clara bodily and didn’t loosen his grip for an instant. Talons and whips tore at him mercilessly as he barrelled through. They reached the edge and the Doctor whirled around. Cornered. The Arai closed in for the kill. Whips crackled the air.

He looked around them, the were enclosed in perfect half- circle. The only way out ?

“Well, girls. Ever get that feeling of déjà vu ?”

Without a second’s hesitation and with Clara huddled against his chest, he fell over the edge into the black.

The miniature time-space envelope discharged, the usual static of the hop through the Vortex now accompanied by a distinct shockwave – the sound of a Kerr singularity collapsing, having failed to connect to the Time Vortex.

They were back at the edge of the forest. Clara sobbed against him. The sonic lay at his feet. _No time, the trick wouldn’t work for long._ They had a hive mind. This was their home turf , soon they would pick up on their location. They had _minutes._ _Tick Tock._

He gently lowered Clara and knelt with her on the ground. He looked into her face, her beautiful chocolate eyes unseeing and pale. Tears streaked her face as she hugged herself, sobbing quietly. She looked so small and lost. So vulnerable. So much like that day, the orange glow of the Phlegethon basking her in a light similar to the console room. The very idea of her belief in this moment, the thought that he would ….that he could _ever…_ but the conclusion he came to on the cliffside was bracing, it fuelled him and focussed his mind. If this was going to work, he needed to have control. He needed to have command of his emotions to sharpen them as he would need to. He took a deep breath. _Tick Tock_

The Doctor closed his eyes and pressed a tender kiss onto Clara’s forehead. When he opened them, he found himself standing in Clara’s bedroom.


	7. Chapter 7

Clara Oswald sat curled up against the headboard. Her head clutched in her hands.

“Clara?”

Her head snapped up immediately. Eyes wide with hope and disbelief. _How does she even do that?_

She clambered over to him, eyes never leaving his. “You …You’re back. You came back”

The Doctor sighed. “For you? Always. But this isn’t real Clara.” Her face fell. He went over and sat down in front of her, held her hands against his chest. “Clara you know this isn’t real. You know what’s really happening. You know what really happened. I came back for you a while ago. I’m sorry I ever left. I’m sorry I lied. But you know this isn’t real and I know you know because that’s what this place is.” He pointed at the room around him. “Your psyche’s defence against the unreal. I thought that I’d have to sift through your consciousness, your memories, your thoughts to find your sense of self but lo and behold, you’ve already saved me the trouble. You impossible girl.” He smiled at her, beaming with pride and….a profound loss. Because this wasn’t the first time this happened was it? One of her echoes had managed to do the same thing against a _Dalek conversion_ and not only had she manged to hold on to her identity, she had managed to hijack the Dalek pathweb en masse. Saving him in the process. Now, here was the original. His Clara. Rassilon’s abominations never stood a chance.

“Clara?” he lifted her chin gently so that he could look into her eyes.

“I…I don’t know. I’m not sure what’s real anymore Doctor. I’m trying to fight it but…. I can’t. The more I try to think about what really happened. What you really did for me, the more it starts to slip away….I …” Her hands shook.

The Doctor smiled. “That’s exactly the point Clara.”

Clara looked up in confusion as he gently cupped her face against his palm. “Don’t you _see_ Clara? The very fact that you know of the real version of events. The very fact that you’re here in your psychic bunker with your pillows and three mirrors, should be _impossible_. Yet here you are. My impossible girl.”

“The Arai are supposed to reach into your timeline and alter the singular event that can destroy you. If they had succeeded, as a time lord directly involved in the events, I would known. I would have felt it. More importantly, you _wouldn’t have._ But you are aware something is wrong, which means your timeline hasn’t shifted, it means it didn’t work. They failed, all they succeeded in doing is alter your _perception_ of reality. Not reality itself. Would have been good enough for most people. Enough to destroy them. If those people weren’t such _impossible_ control freaks ”

He pressed a finger to her temple, their faces inches apart. “This is just like the dream crabs Clara. It’s all in your head. It’s all…dreamy weamy” he grinned.

“But why? Why didn’t it work? Why am I here ? Why are _you_ here ? _How_ are you here ? Oh God, are you dying ? Are _we_ dying ? “ she rambled.

“No! Well …not just yet. Dying I mean. We don’t have much time. But-“

He stood up and whirled across the room, barely able to contain his glee. “The Curses failed to curse you. They couldn’t curse me because…reasons. But the fact that they couldn’t alter your timeline means that there wasn’t a timeline to alter it to. The all-powerful Arai failed because they couldn’t find a timeline where this handsome timelord abandoned you. Your worst version of events, does not _exist_ on any stratum of reality. There is no timeline, none, where you ask for my help and I turn away.”

“But I _didn’t_ ask did I ? I …I betrayed you.”

“So ?”

Clara gulped. Her eyes inflating to the size of saucers. She launched herself at him in one of Clara Oswald’s signature hugs. The Doctor held her against him, clutched tight.

“I didn’t know. I really didn’t. The thought never even crossed my mind but …people always think _I would never_ , don’t they? But that’s not always true because they _could_.They simply didn’t. They chose not to.But not this time Clara, my Clara. So long as you are Clara Oswald, and I am me that event might as well be a fixed point. Not that it _has_ to happen but that there’s no way it can’t. What you did that day is etched into the universe in its insignificance to me.” He felt her sob into the crook of his neck, he also felt her smile.

“Now, Clara. We’re running out of time. As cozy as your psyche is …wait a moment. What are you _wearing ?”_ Clara looked down at herself. “Is that my hoodie? Why are you wearing my hoodie, _I’m_ wearing my hoodie.”

She shrugged. “I guess …maybe it’s because that’s what you wore on Christmas. When you came back for me.”

“But it’s mine”

“Oh, shut up. My mind, my rules. Stealing clothes is normal for couples.”

“Coup- what”

“Moving on. Doctor. Danger. Curses. Focus.”

“Oh…umm. Right. We’re still in the Schism.” He sighed. “How I wish we were really here.”

“We will be. You’ll get us out of this. Soon, we’ll be really here. Safe, cozy and curled up with tea and biscuits.” Clara said with such certainty, so matter-of-factly that he couldn’t help smiling down at her.

“Is your bed bigger?” he asked cocking his head.

“Oi focus. We can do that later. First, we get out of _Hell itself”_ she said mockingly.

“Huh? Wait-what did you -“ the Doctor stammered. Never a dull moment with Clara. Always on his toes. Always on the back foot. Always at a loss.

“Doctor. Plan” she urged.

“Gah. Okay. You’ve got to stop distracting me with your eyes then. Look, I do have warn you though. When we get back , you’ll …well, you’re blind Clara” he said carefully. Clara stiffened. That aspect had probably slipped her mind.

“But don’t worry. We’ll get to that. I already have an idea. You’ll see” he reassured her, then frowned. “I didn’t mean….I mean _you’ll see_. Although that too I suppose.” That earned him a smile and made her relax. Good. On to business.

“Question: How do the Arai alter your timestream? What makes them similar to the Reapers? Answer: The reapers are like antibodies that attack wounds in time. The Arai are the opposite. If your timeline is a computer program. Say hello to the virus. They infect your timestream and corrupt it according to your design.” He walked around the not-bedroom as he spoke, Clara hanging onto every word. “What does that tell us Clara?” he prompted, pointing at her.

“They need to be part of the system. My system. My timestream.” A snap of his fingers. “Exactly, which means?” he prompted again.

“That….they have integrated themselves into my timestream.” She walked around him. “Like the Great Intelligence on Trenzalore?” He beamed proudly as she whirled to face him. _Ah, Clara Oswald. Bullets have left guns slower._

“Precisely, now ordinarily their effects are permanent save for Time Lord intervention. But, they failed. They attacked your system and failed to cause a system shutdown. They tried to make a dent in your defences, but your immune system, your mind. Your _will,_ fought them off.”

“Okay ?”

“They were defeated…ish. However, they remain integrated into your timestream looking for a chance to corrupt. If this sanctum santorum you’ve conjured up for yourself were to fall, their asserted reality would be yours. Though as we’ve established, it wouldn’t actually happen you’d simply _believe_ the story at a fundamental level.” She smiled wanly at him.

“So, we need to get rid of them for good. We need to go on the attack. Which in this case means playing fire with fire. Their failure means that they have a giant gaping hole in their defence. All we need to do is reassert –“

“-the original events.” Clara finished. “Like I did with _your_ timestream.”

“Yes, do that and like hand sanitizer and 99.9 percent of germs the entire hive attacking you is exterminated.” She wrinkled her nose at that last bit.

“But Doctor, I’ve been trying. I can’t …It doesn’t work ... I told you, I can barely hang on.”

“Yeah? You seem fine now. All eyes, smiles and hugs.”

“That’s because you’re here.”

He grinned then and walked up to her, hands on her shoulders. “Yes, I’m here. Inside your head, what happened that day, what I confessed to you on that day burned into my memory. They had their hands full with you. What chance do they have with the two of us?” She grinned back.

A shiver hit and his head snapped up.

“They’re close, I can feel it. Clara, you have to focus. It’s like using the telepathic circuits on the TARDIS. Only I’ll be right here with you, focus on the memory. Don’t think. _Feel_. Let it hurt, let it burn. Remember what I said ? The one thing I said that changed everything ? The one thing that it turns out I have said at every conceivable timeline.”

_Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?_

* * *

Back in the schism, the Doctor and Clara sat huddled at the edge of the forest. Their foreheads pressed together, faces inches apart. Breath mingling.

The Arai emerged from the forest. Far greater in number than he remembered. _Found you! You tricked us Doctor! But the Night sees all. She sensed you, fool. You manged to escape and simply waited for us._

“Yeah, doesn’t that scare you to death?”

They faltered, stopping in their tracks.

_Do not press your luck, Doctor. We see into your future. We see what fate has in store for you. The curse of the Time Lords. We show compassion. The Arai will dispose of the prophesized in the name of the Emanations. In the name of Mother Night._

“Before you dispose of me, I’d like you to answer a question.” The Doctor stood slowly. Clara’s eyes were closed, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Rassilon created you in the forges of the Time War. Abominations to feed on the powerless.. If being powerless is so terribly wrong then does having power make you right? Do you find vengeance evil? What’s your value of justice?”

_There’s no justice or evil. The only reality for you is death._

“I see. Then that _reality_ is all that remains for you as well” He sauntered towards them, screwdriver in hand as they shrieked. Convulsing in the air.

_What are you doing ?! What is this ?! The girl. Her timeline. It burns!_

“I am the Doctor. I have promises to keep. A duty of care.” He pointed the sonic at the demonic throng, amplifying the telepathic field resonating between him and Clara. Their memories, their truth, their emotions, their history- travelling through the conduit of the hive mind. 

They wailed in agony as they fell around them- dropping like flies, turning to smoke on impact. In a matter of seconds, they were gone. Completely vaporized.


	8. Chapter 8

The Doctor’s legs buckled, ears ringing.Through a red glow of pain, he saw Clara wandering blindly.

“Doctor?”

“Present” he grunted as he got to his feet and slowly made his way towards Clara.

“The Arai are gone now Clara. It worked. By sheer blind luck we made it.” Clara Oswald managed to glare despite not being able to see him.

“Too soon?”

“Ya think ?” She continued to glare before a smile slowly crept up her lips. “Blind luck. Sort of our M.O really”

He chuckled. “Luck is the planning you don’t see.” He frowned as he heard the words out loud, he really hadn’t meant it this time. Clara rolled her eyes, the smile never leaving her face as she snuggled into his chest. Her arms wrapped around his torso in a tight hug.

It made his chest swell and made his breath catch. Here stood Clara Oswald, blind as a bat and _smiling_ despite everything _._ The fear and anguish from her Curse gone without a trace. He resisted the urge to kiss her right then and there. It was something he had found himself doing with increasing frequency ever since last Christmas. Clara on the other hand, had had no such restraint. But he digressed. 

The Doctor brought them down towards the ground. _Down to business._ He closed his eyes and focused. It was harder to control due to his injuries, but soon he felt an electrifying warmth flow into his hand. Like the warmth of fresh blood, both within and without. Every muscle, every tendon. Every cell. His hand began to glow.

He would have to be incredibly careful. Clara was human. This wasn’t like it was with River. She was like him, or near enough. Her body could process and regulate regeneration energy. But Clara. If he wasn’t careful, she’d burn, or end up as a human metacrisis. Heavens forbid she suffer Jack’s fate. He wouldn’t ever place the burden of immortality on Clara. No. This would require far greater control than he had ever dared exercise. The most he had ever done was when he had regenerated in front of Rose Tyler, but even that had been half involuntary given that he was already holding the TARDIS matrix at bay. No, this would be _surgical._

_Concentrate._

In his mind, a silver pendulum swung in darkness. He would need to reduce the intensity of the regeneration energy so that it didn’t harm Clara, but it would still need to be potent enough to do it’s job. The eye is incredibly delicate. He ran the calculations in his head. The pendulum swung. The glow in his hand faded until it was barely there, he channelled all of it to the tip of his index finger. It burned. If it hurt him, it was too much. He reduced the intensity further, sweating from the effort. _There._ Now came the hard part.

The silver pendulum continued to swing. Clara was saying something, asking something. He didn’t know what. Soon her voice began to fade, the world dropped away. Silence. He slowed his double heartbeat and his respiration down to a third. On the precipice of consciousness. The pendulum slowed down as if it was now moving through corn syrup. _Focus._ The energy coalesced into a single point, sharpening. Sharpening. Sharpening. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead. Every muscle in his body burned, any second they would cramp. His hearts felt like they were about to explode. _Almost there_. The regeneration energy at his finger now was like a scalpel. The world fell. He couldn’t feel his body anymore. His consciousness a small helium balloon, loosely tied to the top of his head. _No._ It had no weight, no strength. It just kept expanding, getting lighter and lighter. He knew that soon, it would burst or the string would break. Vaguely he was aware of Clara running her hands blindly over his face, taking his face in her hands. He couldn’t hear her, but he could tell she was frantic. He desperately held onto the scalpel of regeneration energy.

Clara kissed his forehead. His cheek. Her lips quivered as she cradled his head in her hands.

The Doctor sank back into his body anchored to the touch of her lips against his skin. The pendulum had stopped. _There_ , now he just had to ….

With colossal effort, his hand shaking he touched the finger to Clara’s forehead and _released._

A cold tingle like eucalyptus oil spread through him and into Clara. As soon as it passed, the world crashed into him with the force of a freight train. He felt like he had swallowed a deep fryer, his insides bubbled, his lungs as hot as lava.

Clara’s eyes cleared. She looked around wildly. “Where —what —?”

She saw the Doctor and a series of expressions flashed across her face — relief, shock, joy, horror. “Doctor, what’s wrong ?!” she cried. He suspected she had been doing that for a while now.

“What happened? What did you do ?!”

“It’s okay.” The Doctor managed a smile before the regeneration energy flared. A barely perceptible flash of gold pulsed through his body and the Doctor collapsed onto Clara.


	9. Chapter 9

“If you regenerate on me again, I’m going to strangle you until you circle back to this one”

Clara sat on the edge of the forest. The Doctor lay in her lap. He had a pulse. He was breathing. He even looked peaceful. But he had definitely done something. A stupid something. She hadn’t been able to see a couple minutes ago, but as close as they had been sitting she had been able to feel something happening. He had stopped breathing for a good while and his body had gone cold. Most importantly, he had stopped talking. That was never good. She thought that his injuries might have gotten the better of him, or that he was being attacked and she just couldn’t see it. She had barely suppressed the panic and managed to blindly kiss him, begging him to clue her in.

The Doctor had then touched her forehead, his fingers burning and a tingling sensation spread through her into her head, like someone had rubbed vaporub on the inside of her skull. Next thing she knew she saw the Doctor crouched in front of her looking haggard, beaten, bruised and bloody. Then he collapsed. _Yeah, not suspicious at all._

Oh by the way, just before he fell across her like a forlorn giraffe, he had flashed gold. Like he had when he had regenerated into this body. _Oh, she was going to kill him._

“God, what did you do you daft, old man”

“That’s rude”

Clara gasped. The Doctor stared up at her blearily. A smile on his face.

“What did you do?! You tell me what you did right now or so help me …”

“I used one of my regenerations on you.”

Yep, killed without hesitation. “What?! Are you insane ?!”

“Medically speaking, I’m nuttier than squirrel poo” said the Doctor, infuriatingly blasé about the whole thing. “But not in this. This was as good a decision as I’ve ever made.”

“Doctor, _why ?!_ Why would you do this ?! Look at the state of you, I —”

“Clara, Clara I’ll be fine soon” he said reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear.

“It just…took a lot out of me. Not the regeneration itself, the control. The dusty vultures at the Academy said it couldn’t be done. Ha! Renegade for life.”

“You…you’re not going to regenerate are you ?”

He smiled.

“Doctor —”

“No he’s not going to regenerate.” said a voice. Clara’s head snapped up. Her eyes widened. _No. What in the name of …._

“About time you woke up Doctor. I was getting bored.” said the figure stalking towards them from within the forest. Cashmere purple coat billowing behind him. Straightening his bow-tie.

“Come on, up and at em. Wakey wakey! ”

Clara decided the monsters wouldn’t kill her. Neither would the poisonous atmosphere, nor the treacherous landscape with its pits, cliffs, and jagged rocks. Nope. Most likely she would die from an overload of _weirdness_ that would make her brain explode.

She looked into the familiar green eyes as he smiled down at her.

“Hello, my impossi—”

He stopped short as the Doctor launched himself off Clara’s lap in a burst of energy and rammed the Eleventh Doctor into a tree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued in Part 2: Damnation.

**Author's Note:**

> There it is. My first ever attempt at writing. As such, any and all feedback is welcomed and appreciated. Find me on tumblr with the same handle if you wish to offer detailed constructive criticism. or just for the hell of it.  
>   
> Link to my Doctor who edits: [The Praetor](https://youtu.be/6hqFAPi9ov8)


End file.
